The present invention relates to RJ connectors and, in particular, to a multiport RJ connector which reduced short-out possibilities in the connector and simplifies the routing of conductive paths on a PC board.
RJ connectors are modular connectors used in telecommunications and data networks to interconnect equipment units. As the need for speed of such equipment increases, the frequencies of the signals employed in such equipment also increase (i.e., into the gigahertz range). At the same time, there is a need to make the equipment more compact. The use of high frequencies combined with the increased compactness of the equipment leads to increased problems of unwanted interactions between signals carried by the connectors.
Further, when these high frequency connectors are arranged into a multiport connector assembly, the RJ jacks which are located furthest from the system printed circuit board are required to have multiple long lead length conductors of relatively high impedance such that the high end frequencies may be conducted without a substantial amount of interference. The use of these long lead length conductors further complicates the routing and placement of the conductors within the RJ unit.
Accordingly, there remains a need for an RJ connector which provides a direct and low impedance path for ground and or source connections to the system printed circuit board.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a more compact arrangement of RJ connectors and, more particularly, to provide a multiport RJ connector having a direct and low impedance path for ground and source connections to the system printed circuit board.
The invention provides a modular connector which includes a direct and low impedance path for the ground and source connections to the system printed circuit board. The modular connector includes a housing with one or more compartments, each compartment being structured and arranged to receive a plug. Within the housing are one or more conductive planes. Preferably, there are two conductive planes, a voltage source plane and a voltage ground plane. These source and ground planes are provided on a printed circuit board within the housing. The source and ground planes create a low impedance path for the source and ground connections by directly connecting the source and ground planes to the system printed circuit board of the equipment unit by a common voltage source pin and a common voltage ground pin, each of which extend from the housing. The voltage source connections and the voltage ground connections for each RJ jack are respectively connected to the voltage source plane and the voltage ground plane such that each of the RJ jacks share a common voltage source and ground. Accordingly, when multiport RJ connectors are formed, the use of the common source and ground planes operates to reduce the number of pins in each RJ unit by requiring only one voltage source pin and one voltage ground pin regardless of the number of RJ jacks in the multiport connector.